The history of Nigerian aviation will be incomplete without the mention of Maiduguri and Kano city, where the first aircraft landed in Nigeria on November 1, 1925. It is exactly 90 years since the historic flights, involving three De Havilland DH 9A aircraft belonging to the Royal Air Force, RAF. Vincent Orange’s book, the “Coningham: A Biography of Air Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham”, vividly captured the expedition. The air trip, led by the then Flight Lt. Coningham, began from Helwan (a town in Egypt) to Kano, with several stopovers with Egypt, Sudan and N’Djamena – then known as Fort Lamy. Excerpts from pages 44 to 46 of the book revealed details about the journey, including how the pilots played polo with Emir of Zazzau, Ibrahim Kwasau and how Shehu of Borno Sanda Kura offered them rams. “By 1925, interest was growing in the problems and possibilities of opening up the African continent to civil aviation. The French and Belgians had plans for their own territ...
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